


Pies, Lies and Misdemeanors

by ariel2me



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 20:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Game of Ships Ice and Fire Challenge on Tumblr for the prompt Baking.</p>
<p>Peach pie, onion bread, and a touch that lingered too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pies, Lies and Misdemeanors

“I still do not understand what my father has against peaches,” Shireen muttered between mouthfuls of pie. “But there it is, peaches are not allowed in our kitchen. Not just fresh ones, but _anything_ to do with peaches.” Not that the ban had stopped the princess from indulging. She came to Tower of the Hand for that purpose.

“You don’t suppose it has anything to do with the Tyrells, do you?” Shireen asked.

“The Tyrells?” Devan asked, to buy time. He believed he knew what was behind the king’s aversion towards the fruit. A parley in the stormlands, many years ago. His Grace’s younger brother Lord Renly relishing a peach, the juices running down his chin.

“I did not come here to eat fruit!” The king had thundered at his brother, when offered a peach.

“Why did Renly offer me the peach? What does it mean?” His Grace had been obsessed by that question ever since Lord Renly’s mysterious death. Devan’s father could not find a satisfactory reply to give the king.

_He wanted to haunt your dreams. That’s why he offered you the peach_ , Devan would have told the king, if he had been asked. Devan had never been asked his opinion on the matter. Judging from His Grace’s fevered dreams and sleepless nights, Lord Renly had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

“Where did you go?” Shireen was watching him, her gaze probing and inquisitive. Devan blushed. The princess was always accusing him of daydreaming, of living another life in his head. Of running away to where no one could follow him, not ever her.

“Do you have more fascinating friends in that life?” She had asked him once. _“_ More interesting than I am?”

_But we are not friends, my princess. We can never be friends, or more than friends. I am your father’s squire. My father and I both serve your father at his pleasure._

He would never dream of hurting her by saying those words out loud. She was lonely enough as it was.

Shireen paused to take a drink. “Peaches, Highgarden, Tyrells, siege of Storm’s End,” she continued, before taking another bite of the pie.

It would have sounded cryptic to most people, but Devan understood her meaning at once. He nodded. “Perhaps you are right.”

If the king had not confided to his daughter about the parley and his brother Renly, it was not Devan’s place to do so. He had a duty of trust to the king.

But he was also, apparently, unable to keep anything hidden from the princess. She studied him carefully, her eyes narrowing with suspicion, her Florent ears perking up. “What are you not telling me? What do you know, Devan?”

_I know that a squire safeguards his lord’s secrets and confidences, or he is no squire at all._

“I know no more than you do, Princess Shireen,” Devan replied, not looking Shireen in the eyes, his fingers playing with the bread on his plate, taking out the onion slices in it. He gathered the onion slices on one side of the plate. He would eat them last. That was how his eldest brother Dale used to eat his bread, Devan remembered. And Matthos used to complain that Dale’s breath stank of onion.

Shireen was shaking her head. “You _always_ know more than I do. You spend a lot more time in Father’s company than I do.” She sounded, if not exactly envious, almost wistful.

Devan did not know how to reply to that, in a way that would reassure the princess. He was going through the various possibilities in his mind when Shireen called out his name. “Devan? You’ve gone somewhere else again,” she complained.

“I was thinking about my brothers,” he blurted out, and then immediately regretted it.

Her eyes never left his face. She did not do the thing that most people do, when confronted with another person’s grief, another person’s loss. Her expression never changed either to show pity or sympathy; she did not try to pretend that she understood what he was feeling. She sat still, so very still, silently willing him to speak again.

“Dale would pick out all the onions from his bread. He would do that with other things too, nuts, fruits, anything Mother would put in there. But the onion is the only thing he would eat later. The nuts or the fruits, he would give to me, Steff and Stanny.”

Shireen nodded. “I’ve always wondered why you eat your bread that way.”

Devan looked up, startled. “Why have you never asked?”

She shrugged. “If you wanted me to know the reason, you would have told me.”

“And now I have. Told you.”

She gave him a smile. “Yes, you have. Thank you,” she said, her hand reaching out to his. And it stayed there, her hand, on top of his hand.

 Devan was not certain if he was still breathing.

It was not the first time she had touched him. She had grasped his hand so they could run and find a hiding place together when they were playing hide-and-seek in Aegon’s Garden with Edric Storm and Patchface. During their lessons with Maester Pylos, Shireen would sometimes lean towards Devan, to point out a particular sentence or paragraph in the book they were reading. Their fingers would touch on the page; her hair would brush over his face.

But they were children then, the touches innocent of any loaded meaning, and unlikely to spur any complicated feelings. At seventeen, Devan was more aware of the various complications that could occur, should they ever lose sight of who _she_ was, who _he_ was, and the deep chasm that existed between them.

_She is a princess. She is the king’s daughter_ , he repeated the refrain in his head over and over again.

Her hand was still on top of his. She was smiling, an enigmatic smile he had never seen on her face before.

Devan cleared his throat. “You look pleased, my princess.” So he could still speak after all, had not been rendered mute by all the thoughts and feelings jumbled together inside him.

“I am. Very pleased,” Shireen replied. “I wanted to be certain about something, and now I am.”

He did not dare ask her what it was she wanted to be certain about.  


End file.
